Freshly Cut Grass

That's the name of my exciting mystery romance novel that I just published on Smashwords.
Here is a synopsis: Aleia Neville is a famous Christian music artist with a secreted past. Her dysfunctional, adoptive family presents her with enough troubles that she wishes to keep her distance from them except they hold the keys to unlock her past. As she delves in to uncover the truth about her biological parents and who they are, new possibilities for love and trust open up to her. But as she continues to uncover the secrets of her past her world becomes treacherous. Those whom she has included in her circle of trust may be the ones she should have never let in. The safety of her body, mind and even her soul will be threatened by malice like none she has ever known. Someone wants Aleia’s life, someone wants her soul.

  I hope you find yourselves immersed in the adventure of Aleia as she journeys to find her truths and who it is safe for her to befriend trust and love.

  I told you I'd let you know about the person who formatted my book for Smashwords right? She did an awesome job in less time than she originally told me. She is also very well priced. Her name and contact is: Shelley Schadowsky goodlifeguide@cox.net  check out her website she does other stuff too.
Next I want to figure out how to create a You Tube trailer for Freshly Cut Grass. Stay tuned for more on that...

Another step towards published!

  Today I sent my Novel off to be formatted so I can upload it to Smashwords.
I decided not to have it edited again. I got a sample edit and didn't care for the new voice my characters took on. I hadn't had an editor change the way my characters talk and didn't care for it. When I write I get to know the characters and can hear them and even see them. I know their speech style or their accent if they have one. When they speak, they talk like people really talk in real life, with out formality. Sometimes they say quirky things or choose a pet word or a nick-name for a family member. Their speech patterns are age appropriate most of the time. I mean, sometimes there will be an aged character who is really young at heart or a teen who thinks they need to sound like an adult. These people are very real even though they're fiction. So when they get edited it's like they're not themselves any more.
  When I have my work edited I neeeed grammatical errors sniped and for the editor to catch things that I change such as a name or a character's gender. For instance, my novel has a dog in it, actually several but the star dog was originally planned to be male. As any of you dog owners know, canines have their own personalities, right? As I got to know the dog in my story and the character developed I realized he just had to be a she. This change happened in about chapter 3 so I missed changing a few "he's" to "she's." My second editor caught this little slip and I fixed it right up.
  So I have allowed my characters to keep their own voices and hopefully the first two edits took care of the grammatical stuff.
  I'm excited for my novel to be available, it was such an adventure to write I really enjoyed where the story led me - hope my readers do too.
  

To edit again or not???

I'm deciding rather or not to pay to have my novel edited again before having it formatted so I can then finally upload it to Smashwords. I hear one can never edit too much because readers don't want to stumble over typos and other grammatical errors. But then, having another edit means another wait and more money. I just wanna get it out there but I want it to be good. Hummm still deciding...

 Having written a Novel, I've decided to give it a stage and take you on the adventure with me if you wish to join me.
 I've decided to try entrepreneurship and publish with Smashwords. I like the idea of keeping the rights to what I wrote. :)
I decided on Smashwords so that no ereader owners would be left out of the circle of reading my novel if they so choose and Smashwords will enable this. Thanks ahead SWs!
 Next was the decission on rather to create my own cover for my book or pay to have it done. I purchased Photoshop Elements 9 and spent hours playing with a photo I took for the front of my book - no luck - I just can't figure out the program fast enough! So I checked Mark's list from the Smashwords style guide and got a list of people who design covers. I went to their web sites and emailed them and decided to use Cal Sharp. He was great! Thanks Cal! He used my photo and added a really cool background and the book title and my name. He sent me several options and incorporated mine and my husbands ideas till we came to the perfect fit. That's good customer service and I'm a pleased customer as a result. Did I mention he's very very affordable? He is. Here's his contact info http://www.caligraphics.net/joomla/
Next I will attatch the cover to my book file and send it to the formatter. Sounds easy right - hope so; I'm a bit technically challanged.
 I'll letcha know how the formatting goes and then toot my horn for the formatter too - I hope. :)
 I started this blog so the formatter can attatch a hyperlink to it on my copyright page when I publish so my readers can find me here.